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Theme Of Superficiality In The Great Gatsby

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During the “fast living of the twenties”, both men and women were changing their past lifestyles and moving forward to a more grandeur lifestyle, taking on a way of living that was considered the “American Dream”. In relation to how the 1920s was known to be like, the central theme of the book, “The Great Gatsby”, was focused around this time period. The author of this book, F. Scott Fitzgerald, reveals his real feelings of “The American Dream” and uses the main character, Jay Gatsby, to show that this idea is indeed superficial. Throughout the novel, the author interprets Gatsby's way of thinking to reflect on the ideas of the time period to show superficiality. The personality of his character has “something about him that suggested dreams, romance and a kind of sense or love of splendor and grandeur”, which is used to help indicate relative values of fictional achievements (Solomon 187). For example, he goes out of his way to deceive Daisy about his life to feel worthy of her love. He believes he has to live this lavish life in order to interest her back into dating him. We find out about this …show more content…

There was a literary and a figurative death of Jay Gatsby. According to research, the true death of Gatsby resulted from “the destruction of an ultimate American idealist” (Gatsby: Theme Analysis). Due to Gatsby symbolizing the “American Dream”, when he died it showed the result of ultimately what this dream leads to, implying that everything he tried to achieve was on the surface because the people he spent time trying to impress by throwing parties and ‘living’ didn’t care about him in the long run. None of the people who participated in his parties showed up to his funeral. When he died, the only person who stayed loyal to him was Nick. Gatsby’s death was insignificant to those around him, showing that the American Dream meant

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